Dr. Joanne McCarthy:

The former health boards had a dedicated staff member whose job it was to keep databases live but there has been attrition in this regard over time and a lot of other things have happened. In addition, organisations, particularly the Irish Wheelchair Association, that are front-facing delivery services had to cease gathering data because doing so was creating an expectation that they could not answer. A colleague from the Centre for Independent Living told us that information on its database relating to the needs of people dates back five years and much of it has been archived. This means that people are waiting a very long time for services.